\u3ci\u3eAnaplasma Phagocytophilum\u3c/i\u3e Modulates Mammalian and Arthropod Signaling for Its Survival and Transmission

Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) are illnesses transmitted to humans and other animals by arthropods such as ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas. These arthropod vectors transmit infectious pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and protozoa, to humans during blood-feeding. We have very few control strategies to treat or control these diseases. Human anaplasmosis, caused by the bacterium Anaplasma phagocytophilum, is the second most common tick-borne disease in the United States. This work defines three studies elucidating Anaplasma phagocytophilum-mediated modulation of cell signaling in mammalian cells and arthropod vector Ixodes scapularis ticks. The first study focused on mammalian PI3 kinases signaling in regulating cell cycle gene expression during A. phagocytophilum infection. Using the human megakaryocytic cell line, MEG-01, we observed a differential expression of cell cycle genes in these cells upon A. phagocytophilum infection. Both PI3KCA (p110 alpha, catalytic subunit) and PI3KR1 (p85, regulatory subunit) of Class I PI3 kinases and phosphorylated protein kinase B (Akt/PKB) and IκB were higher at early and late stages of A. phagocytophilum infection. Inhibition of PI3 kinases with LY294002 treatment resulted in a significant reduction in the bacterial load and the expression of cell cycle gene expression. These results suggest a role for PI3K-Akt-NF-κB signaling in the modulation of megakaryocyte cell cycle genes upon A. phagocytophilum infection. The second study showed that A. phagocytophilum uses tick transcriptional activator protein-1 (AP-1) as a molecular switch in the regulation of the arthropod antifreeze gene, iafgp. RNAi-mediated silencing of ap-1 significantly affected iafgp gene expression and bacterial burden in ticks during acquisition from the murine host. The electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) revealed that both the bacterium and AP-1 protein influence iafgp promoter and expression. The luciferase assays demonstrated that a 700 bp upstream region of the antifreeze gene is sufficient for AP-1 binding to drive iafgp gene expression. Furthermore, survival assays revealed that ap-1 deficient ticks were more susceptible to cold than the mock control ticks. These data show that AP-1 acts as an upstream transcriptional activator to drive the iafgp expression that is critical for A. phagocytophilum survival in I. scapularis ticks. The third study identified and characterized the circadian components in I. scapularis. The identification of the core clock genes in ticks was made using bioinformatic analysis from the Ixodes scapularis genome. Core clock genes like clock1 and bmal1 were upregulated upon tick feeding on the murine host. RNAi-mediated knockdown of the arthropod clock1 gene resulted in an increased bacterial transmission from ticks to the murine host. These results indicate that arthropod clock-mediated signaling is essential for transmitting A. phagocytophilum from tick to the vertebrate host. Taken together, these studies highlight several undefined mechanisms that A. phagocytophilum modulates for its survival in mammalian cells and ticks

Importance of ICT in Education for Gifted Students

Gifted and talented children are those who are identified by professionally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities are capable of high performance. These are children who require differentiated educational programs and services beyond those that are normally provided by the regular school program in order to realize their contribution to self and society (Marland, 1972). A gifted child in the regular classroom may be the only child in the room; hence, he or she will not have the opportunity to learn with others of like ability. ICT can provide opportunities for students to develop and practice higher level thinking skills. The gifted students are spread around the world and ICT makes it possible that gifted students communicate with other gifted students all around the world. ICT can be used to acquire that type of knowledge which can satisfy the needs of the gifted children. So, the purpose of this paper is to determine the use of technology in education for the learning of gifted and talented students

Faithfully Negligent: Religious Implications for Criminal Negligence Cases

Do the actions of parents in withholding medical treatment from their children due to religious influence show wanton or reckless disregard for the safety and lives of their children? This project investigates the morally and legally complicated issue of the influence of religious beliefs in criminal negligence cases. My MRP is animated by the idea that similar cases in the past have been treated with leniency and ought to be given stricter punishments. I focus in particular on cases in which parents opt for alternative remedies or faith healing for ill children in ignorance or defiance of available medical treatments. I investigate the role of mistake of fact based on honest belief in prosecutions for criminal negligence causing death. Furthermore, I develop an argument that reliance on religious beliefs should not exculpate an accused parent from liability in criminal negligence cases. I argue that similar cases in the past have been treated with great leniency. This research proposes that cases of faith healing deaths be treated as cases of manslaughter, namely under section 222(5)(b), and that a minimum sentence of six years’ imprisonment be imposed for the death of vulnerable children

Comparative Analysis of Bit Error Rate and Outage Capacity for MIMO Space Time Trellis Coding

In this paper, we have first given brief introduction to Multiple Inputs Multiple Outputs (MIMO) systems. After that different MIMO models and their capacity is discussed. We have compared bit error rate of different modulation techniques like Phase Shift Keying (PSK), Quadrature Amplitude Modulation i.e. QAM 16, QAM 32, QAM 64 using Space Time Trellis Coding (STTC). The outage capacity and bit error rate of MIMO and MISO have also been compared. The Rank criterion is used for maximizing the rank of transmitting antennas matrix in STTC. The proposed technique increases spatial diversity and coding gain of MIMO channels

A health decision support system for rural india

In India and other developing nations, the bulk of the morbidity & mortality is due to commonly occurring communicable diseases & parasitic diseases coupled with malnutrition especially in rural areas. The effective decision making at the top level of any health services mostly depends on the availability of various resources such as human expertise, equipments, and medicine. People die from infectious and/or chronic diseases are the leading causes of death, especially in rural areas. By analyzing mortality, morbidity, and behavioral data, one can attempt to quantify health problems and the behavioral risk factors that contribute to them Hence in a country like India an effective multi disease surveillance system is essential for the General Health Care System to detect an outbreak, monitor the trend, prevent an epidemic & decrease the morbidity & mortality rate of India The proposed DSS is targeting to assist the top management of the State health service which will provide a practical, relatively inexpensive and replicable model of disease surveillance. The proposed system consists of application and management software that support clinical and operational data. The software is designed for multi-site use in individual medical facilities and health workers in remote villages. The disease surveillance data is collected and updated periodically by the health workers to the central database through SMS. This disease surveillance system through SMS will provide real time data and extract the statistical and customized information and even facilitate the prediction of the outbreak of epidemics and report emergencies. It also provides an automatic response messaging through SMS to people regarding basic preventive measures and cures. A smart phone application is built using J2ME which make data transmission error free and secured. The use of SMS as the mode of data transmission will help reduce bureaucratic delays and will automate the task of disease surveillance by providing an inexpensive replacement to the existing trend

Implementation and Analysis of Different Equalizers using SIC and V-Blast Architecture for MIMO systems

Wireless communication transfers the information between two points without connected electrically to each other. Wireless operations permits to user to communicate long range or at any range without wires. Wireless communication is reliable, robust and secure. This paper evaluates the performance of detectors using V-BLAST architecture for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. To Review the performance, the implementation of the multiuser receivers like the ZF detector, the MMSE receiver and SIC Successive Interference Cancellation is required. The algorithms of these receivers combined with multiuser receivers to achieve high channel capacity. Simulation result shows that instead of using equal number of transmitter and receiver antennas, this will get better performance of BER with increased number of receiver antennas only compared to transmitters

INFORMED CONSENT STATUS IN OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES WITH RETROSPECTIVE DESIGN: A POOR SHOW

ABSTRACTObjective: Informed consent is very important to protect the rights of patients and is obtained as a vital component of any clinical study. Requirementof patient consent in retrospective research continues to stir controversy even today. Some of directions of regulatory authorities even waive off theconsent for retrospective studies, whereas few recommend that at least clearance from the Ethical Review Board may be taken or information topatient may be given or oral consent must be given by patient for usage of the data in any retrospective study. The aim of this study was to analyze thecurrent status of informed consent procedures in observational studies with retrospective design.Methods: This review was intended to find out the current status of procedures involved in informed consent in India and abroad. A total of 100retrospective studies were searched for this objective from the internet and other literature sources.Results: Data show that in 65% of studies neither informed consent/oral consent nor ethical clearance was taken. Only 1% of studies have beenconducted with informed consent as well as ethical clearance. Only 14% of studies were conducted with informed consent and 21% with ethicalapproval.Conclusion: The study reflects very poor status of informed consent in retrospective studies and noncompliance of ICH guidelines for clinical researchin relation to informed consent.Keywords: Clinical research, Informed consent, Retrospective studies

Essays on Labor Markets in Developing Countries

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on distortions in labor market outcomes in developing countries. Chapter 1 tests for downward nominal wage rigidity in markets for casual daily agricultural labor. It examines responses to rainfall shocks in 500 Indian districts from 1956-2008. First, nominal wages rise in response to positive shocks but do not fall during droughts. Second, after transitory positive shocks have dissipated, nominal wages do not fall back down. Third, inflation moderates these effects. Fourth, rigidities lower employment: landless laborers experience a 6% reduction in employment in the year after positive shocks. Fifth, consistent with separation failures, rationing leads to increased labor supply to small farms. New survey evidence suggests that agricultural workers and employers view nominal wage cuts as unfair and believe that they reduce effort. Chapter 2 (with Michael Kremer and Sendhil Mullainathan) describes the results of a field experiment that tests for self-control problems in labor supply. First, we find that workers will choose dominated contracts—which pay less for every output level but have a steeper slope—to motivate themselves. Second, effort increases significantly as workers’ (randomly assigned) payday gets closer. Third, the demand for dominated contracts (and their benefits) is concentrated amongst those with the highest payday effects. Finally, as workers gain experience, they appear to learn about their self control problems: the correlation between the payday effect and the demand for the dominated contract grows with experience. These results together suggest that self-control, in this context at least, meaningfully alters the firm’s contracting problem. Chapter 3 empirically examines the impact of multiple market failures on allocative efficiency in farm production in poor countries. In years when labor rationing is more likely in villages (due to wage rigidity), there is a 63% increase in sharecropped and leased land by small farmers. This is consistent with the prediction that distortions from a failure in one market can be reduced by reallocating other factors of production. In areas with worse credit access, there is less land adjustment in response to labor rationing. These results provide evidence for separation failures resulting from multiple missing markets

Role and Perceptions of Midwifery Practices in Relation to Health Outcomes in North Carolina

Midwifery led-care incorporates both childbearing and gynecological care for females (Russell, 2018). Studies have shown that continuity midwifery-led care reduces rates of unnecessary interventions and leads to advantageous health outcomes (Elderhorst et al, 2019). However, while midwifery is positively correlated with maternal birth outcomes and low healthcare costs, the incorporation of midwifery is not widespread, especially in states such as North Carolina where legislature limits the scope of midwives (Caughey & Cheyney, 2019). This study provides insight into the dynamic elements of the midwifery model of care and examines the health trends of women and infants in North Carolina. Statistical data of health in North Carolina and perspectives of practitioners reveal notable disparities in our healthcare system and the need to improve access to care for women, particularly in rural areas. The study establishes the importance of implementation and integration of midwifery into the maternal healthcare system in addressing maternal health discrepancies on a local, state, and national level.Bachelor of Art